Rajeev: Positive. I believe nowadays none of those conversations could be full with out speaking about AI and gen AI. We began this early exploratory part early into the sport, particularly on this a part of the world. However for us, the secret’s approaching this primarily based on the shopper’s ache factors and enterprise wants after which we work backward to establish what sort of AI is greatest appropriate or related to us. In Cathay, at the moment, we deal with three primary varieties of AI. One is after all conversational AI. Basically, it’s a type of an inner and exterior chatbot. Our chatbot, we name it Vera, serves prospects instantly and may deal with about 50% of the inquiries efficiently. And nearly two weeks again, we upgraded the LLM with a brand new mannequin, the chatbot with a brand new mannequin, which is ready to be extra environment friendly and far more responsive by way of the human work. In order that’s one a part of the AI that we closely invested on.
Second is RPA, or robotic course of automation, particularly what you are seeing is through the pandemic and post-Covid period, there may be restricted sources out there, particularly in Hong Kong and throughout our provide chain. So RPA or the robotic processes helps to automate mundane repetitive duties, which does not solely fill the useful resource hole, but it surely additionally instantly enhances the worker expertise. And up to now in Cathay, we’ve got a couple of hundred bots in manufacturing serving numerous enterprise items, serving roughly 30,000 hours yearly of human exercise. So that is the second half.
The third one is round ML and it is the gen AI. So like our digital crew or the information science crew has developed about 70-plus ML fashions in Cathay that turned the group information into insights or actionable gadgets. These fashions assist us to make a greater choice. For instance, what meals to be loaded into the plane and particular routes, by way of what amount and what sort of product gives we promote to prospects, and together with the fare loading and the pricing of our passenger in addition to a cargo bay house. There may be numerous exploration that’s being finished on this house as nicely. And a few examples I might relate is in the event you ever occur to return to Hong Kong, subsequent time on the airport, you may hear the general public announcement system and that’s additionally AI-powered not too long ago. Prior to now, our workers used to manually make these bulletins and now it has been moved away and has been moved into AI-powered voice know-how in order that we could possibly be constant in our announcement.
Megan: Oh, implausible. I am going to must hear for it subsequent time I am at Hong Kong airport. And you have talked about this subject a few instances within the dialog. Look, after we’re speaking about cloud modernization, cybersecurity could be a roadblock to agility, I suppose, if it is not managed successfully. So might you additionally inform us in just a little extra element how Cathay Pacific has built-in safety into its digital transformation journey, significantly with the adoption of growth safety operations practices that you have talked about?
Rajeev: Yeah, that is an fascinating one. I take care of cybersecurity in addition to the infrastructure companies. With each of those vital features round my hand, I must be aware of each facets, proper? Sure, it is an fascinating one and it has modified over the time frame, and I totally perceive why cybersecurity practices must be inflexible as a result of there may be numerous compliance and it’s a extremely regulated perform, but when one thing goes mistaken, as a CISO we’re held accountable for these faults. I can perceive why the crew is so inflexible of their practices. And I additionally perceive from a enterprise perspective it could possibly be perceived as a highway blocker to agility.
One of many key facets that we’ve got finished in Cathay is we’ve got been following DevOps for fairly numerous years, and not too long ago, I believe within the final two years, we began implementing DevSecOps into our STLC [software testing life cycle]. And what it basically means is fairly than the core cybersecurity crew being liable for most of the safety testing and people kinds of facets, we need to shift left a few of these capabilities into the builders in order that the individuals who develop the code now are held accountable for the testing and the standard of the output. They usually’re additionally enabled by way of the cybersecurity course of. Proper?
After all, after we began off this journey, there was an enormous resistance on the safety crew itself as a result of they do not actually belief the builders attempting to do the testing or the testing outputs. However over a time frame with the introduction of assorted instruments and automation that’s put in place, that is now getting right into a matured stage whereby it’s now enabling the upfront groups to handle all of the facets of safety, like menace modeling, code scanning, and the vulnerability testing. However on the finish, the safety groups could be nonetheless validating and act as a kind of a gatekeeper, however in a really mild and inbuilt processes. And this manner we are able to make sure that our cloud functions are safe by design and by default they will ship them sooner and extra reliably to our prospects. And on this complete course of, proper?
Prior to now, safety has been all the time perceived as an accountability of the cybersecurity crew. And by enabling the builders of the safety facets, now you’ve got a greater possession within the group with regards to cybersecurity and it’s constructing a greater cybersecurity tradition throughout the group. And that, to me, is a key as a result of from a safety facet, we all the time say that persons are your first line of protection and sometimes they’re additionally the final line of protection. I am glad that by these processes we’re in a position to enhance that maturity within the group.
